In a sensitive article published in the Saturday Guardian (“Husbands and Hubris”, March 9, 2013) Margaret Cook, who, as Robin’s widow, knows a thing or two about ambitious politicians and the respect they hold their spouses in, points out that a good reason Ms Vicky Pryce may have accepted marital pressure to cheat the points system, may be simply to shield her children from another damaging row. We shall never know. The facts are, after all, ten years old.

In any European country – part from Britain, but is this Europe? – the couple would have been reprimanded, fined and possibly given a few weeks of community service. Here an intelligent and decent and much wronged woman, whose main offence was to behave like a very silly one, is being sent to jail. But here is the crunch: a ridiculous class-ridden out-of-touch pseudo judicial system, led by self-appointed unctuous goons, representing nothing other than their absurd propertied interests, in a country without written constitution, whose majority is currently crucified by an unelected coalition, sends villains who kill cyclists or pedestrians on the road, to jail – with bad luck – for a few months! The same kind of justice leaves child molesters – knights of the Empire!! – free to roam, strut their stuff for decades on national television… And of course there is worse. Margaret’s article reminded me of those war criminals walking our streets free… The ignoble Bliar – he who lied to the country and parliament, and deserves a fate that he will probability escape, but who knows? – parading his repulsive silhouette and masquerading as “envoy”! “Envoy” of what? A liar, hypocritical villain responsible for the martyr of thousands of young lives… Justice?

In the same week that saw Ms Pryce sentenced to six months in jail, after being branded in court , “a scheming and jealous female”, a report from the Centre for Social Justice denounced slave trafficking in the UK. Children and young women are brutalised, sacrificed to prostitution, forced labour and worse without the same judiciary raising an eyebrow. As for the politicians… All this happens in a country where a minority of fascistic, but yet influential, politicians – without any grasp of the modern world – barks for the UK to abandon the Convention on Human Rights…

Last week was also Women’s International Day. Evidently there is a long way to go, and not just in Africa…